Friday, September 29, 2006

Today someone broke my dad's car's windshield and stole a pouch with my my dad's id, license and registration. I guess they thought there would be money in the pouch, but there wasn't. Wouldn't it be cool if cars would record video footage and transmit to somewhere safe? You don't need to store the data for long, and any idiot who harms the car knows he's on tape somewhere. It would also help to find out what happened in accidents.

In completely unrelated news, I've downloaded Season 01 of The Simpsons - it's still funny!

A while ago I've read some fic where the author quoted (in full) a Rudyard Kipling poem titled "The Female of the Species" (if copyright expires 70 years after the author's death, it's public domain since January, but I won't copy it here. Just look it up). I don't remember much but I think that Harry used the poem to educate Draco that attacking Hermione (or was it Ginny?) is not a smart move. Today, while jogging, it surfaced with a remembered feeling of unease. I remembered it bothering me when I first read it, but I couldn't tell why. So I've looked it up and indeed, it's not a poem about wildlife at all! It's a poem against women suffrage, and regardless of the fic author's gender, it looks like s/he didn't read it well. It was published in 1911, which as far as I know means women's rights were on the public debate. Or am I delusional?

Sunday, September 24, 2006

P.D. has been saying I need to move out of my parents' home for a while. I still think it's financially a bad decision, but maybe growing up has a price as well. I am getting sick and tired of the last five years of doing absolutely nothing.

N.C. got himself discharged, the empty seat reminds everyone at the office that the boat is sinking fast. Curse E.H. to everlasting damnation.

Friday, September 15, 2006

I have been planning to replace my aging computer for a while. First I have been waiting for my conscription to end and my contract to kick-in, so I'll have income. I had the money to buy a computer even before, but I didn't want to spend it. Then I was waiting for a better alternative than the DFI nForce 4 Ultra which was expensive, ran hot and required lots of fiddling. I have been waiting for an ATI-chipset-based overclocking-friendly full-featured not-overpriced socket-939 motherboard. Then AM2 came out, and with it better motherboards. Still nothing that awesome, and Anand said "wait for Conroe". Conroe came out in the summer, and yeah, it's awesome and I want it. But there are no decent cheap motherboards. The cheapest, most problematic board with Conroe/Allendale support, the Gigabyte DS3, costs a thousand NIS. And of course, this is as frustrating as ever:

To this I need to add a decently-quiet, well-ventilated case and a quiet, efficient, stable power supply unit. That can be a thousand NIS together. And I need a monitor.

The more I read about this stuff, the less I'm sure there's a good choice. Every part has problems, compatibility issues, etc. Wanting it to be stable, cool, quiet, and performant while not costing like a car appears to be too much.